Today we are lucky enough to have Nikisha with us Guest Blogging - she is such an amazing person that also has created a non-profit in order to help others. Please take a moment to read her post, visit her websites, and feel free to leave comments in response on our Facebook page.
My
name is Nikisha and I am a mommy to a sweet baby boy who is in the arms of God
and this is the beginning of my stillbirth journey. A week and a half before my due date I am getting excited
that I am about to bring my firstborn child into the world. The only thing on my mind is making
sure everything is in place so that when he comes I will not have to worry
about buying anything else. I just
had a baby shower at work a week or two before so everything was really coming
together. It is Monday morning and
I am scheduled for a routine weekly prenatal checkup. Everything looked good even though it took the Doctor a
couple of minutes to find the heartbeat I then mention that the baby did not
move as often as he used to. The
Doctor did not say anything about it he just kept looking for his heartbeat and
he finally found it.
Three
days later I am woken up by a sharp pain and I thought I was going to start
having contractions but nothing else happened and I went back to sleep. The next morning I went to my scheduled
ultrasound with the father of my baby.
I was excited because this would be the first time he would see the
Ultrasound since he was out to sea for the latter part of my pregnancy. The Ultrasound technician started
looking at the baby everything looked good and then she made it to his heart
and she looked at it for a minute and then said she would be right back. My heart started sinking because I knew
something was wrong since she left in the middle of the ultrasound. After a few minutes my Dr. and his
nurse came in and the Dr. took a look at the ultrasound and then he told us the
bad news that my baby died.
Sitting
there in shock not knowing what to think, feel, say, or do the Dr. tells me to
go into an exam room. Still in
shock we go into the exam room and the tears start to fall and the nurse
consoles me. The Dr. examines me
to see if I had dilated any and I was almost two centimeters dilated. He then proceeds to tell me the
procedure of things to come. We
then schedule an induction to start at midnight. I am silently praying and bargaining with God to perform a
miracle. I check in the hospital
at midnight and at 9:45pm I give birth to Raekwon Kemel M. As they are cleaning him off I am
praying silently for God to give my baby life. I was able to hold him the entire three days I was in the
hospital as often as I wanted to.
I could not hold him too long because he was cold and they did not want
his body to warm up too much. An
experience I will never forget.
The
years after Raekwon’s death I suffered with a deep dark depression and turned
away from God because I did not understand why He was allowing this to happen
to me. After about five years of
being sad I was flipping through the channels and came across this preacher and
what he was saying applied to my life and that was the new beginning to my
renewed faith.
This
is just a brief detail of my story.
More will come as I write down my ongoing experiences. It has been almost twelve years and
there are still times I get sad about not having my son here. Hopefully by sharing my story will let
you know that you are not alone and you can overcome this tragic circumstance
especially when God is involved. I
started a nonprofit organization where we donate care bags to parents experiencing
stillbirth and neonatal loss. I
ship the bags everywhere and donate them to churches and hospitals. I also started a blog because the
journey after having a stillbirth cannot be told in one sitting. You can check it out at http://precioustendermoments.blog.com.
You can also find my website at http://precioustendermoments.org.
